


ante bellum

by candlelight



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Angst, Birthday Fluff, Bittersweet, Drug Use, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friendship/Love, I'm Bad At Tagging, Oh come one there's not much scope for anything else they both die, Pre-Games, excessive use of paranthesis, i guess, sort of anyway.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-25
Updated: 2013-07-25
Packaged: 2017-12-21 07:46:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/897727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/candlelight/pseuds/candlelight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[Latin: ante bellum,  literally: before the war]<br/>Clove usually hates birthdays, but this one seems to be going quite well (until Cato runs into her and Clove realises she knows what love is.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	ante bellum

**an·te·bel·lum**   _adj._ Belonging to the period before a war, especially the American Civil War. [Latin ante bellum : ante,  _before_  + bellum,  _war_.]

 

Clove usually hates birthdays, but this one in seems to be going quite well.

One, she is on her way to dinner, in a train speeding her towards a chance at eternal glory through bloody murder. Two, it is not raining, and the sky is clear and teeming with stars, from what she can see from inside the stuffy little train. Three, she hasn’t had her father ask about whether or not she has managed to defeat seven opponents at once (yet). And Four, she hasn’t been kissed by Some Other Stupid Trainee.

Well, she thinks, as she turns around, reaching for the knife she stole from the table during their last meal. Considering the fact that Some Other Stupid Trainee is here on the train with her, the last one _did_ seem too good to be true.

Whether it is the sudden flash of something gold as the figure steps into the light or the familiar voice, Clove pauses, and that ( _he_ ) is her undoing.

Before she knows it, she is pressed up against the window, and she can feel cool glass on her back and warm breath on her face. She drops the knife that is still in her hand before she spills blood.

“Cato, what the _fuck_ are you doing?” She hisses, and he laughs at the way her breath hitches.

“Wondering,” he says softly, leaning in close, too close, letting his lips graze hers . “Would you like to be my ally?”

“Fuck off, it’s my birthday,” she mutters, and presses her lips against his, parts his lips, slides her tongue into his mouth, her mouth moving softly. He tastes like wine, _probably drunk, the bastard_ , and makes a surprised, pleased, vulnerable little sound that does strange things to her heart, and kisses her like this is their last chance at anything they could ever be. ( _it is_ )

Cato is like his kisses, arrogant, hard, demanding. He is like her knife, strong, wild, bloodthirsty. He is like her, deadly, determined, desperate. ( _for victory, he told her last night, and Clove looks into his eyes and knows that he is not exactly lying)_

 “No more birthdays for you, Clove, no more birthdays kisses.”

“Don’t need them. Just- unh- just you.” _(and it’s crazy, how the feel of his tongue running along the delicate roof of her mouth and his teeth nipping at her lower lip can make her lose her filter and say things like this, all the while kissing, pushing, pulling, biting, licking, her  fingers digging into his back-)_

He laughs again, he is always laughing at her. He laughs at her inability to tell the difference between nightshade and blueberries, he laughs at her when his laughing makes her knife miss her target and land in the dirt, and then he laughs at the way Trone-from-back-home sprawls in the dust, clutching at his nose, because only Cato can laugh at her.

 “Do me a favour,” she says, pulling away.

She knows the words before they leave his mouth, feels the rumble of his chest. They are cool and wary, just as they should be, “What favour?”

She considers her words, and wonders if they are friends. She thinks they are. _(at least, he shares his arrows with her when hers break, and she lets him use her as a crutch when he sprains his ankle, and on each of her birthdays, he gives her a soft peck on her lips as she pretends to recoil in disgust and on his birthday, she hugs him tight and he smiles only slightly shyly)_

She considers her words, and wonders if she loves him. She thinks she does. _(at least, her stomach explodes with butterflies every time he touches her and when he kissed another girl she went and beat him up and wouldn’t speak to him until he explained to her that it was a dare, and she has never hated him even when he killed her pet falcon not by mistake)_

She considers her words, and wonders if he loves her- whether somewhere between their disastrous first meeting involving mud and shoving and arguments about whether girls or boys were 'better', and standing on that podium in front of a roaring crowd, smiles on their faces because _yes they should be happy this is what they have been waiting for their whole lives_ \- he might, possibly, have fallen in love with her.

“What favour?” says Cato’s voice again, shut off and unreadable. _(but not to Clove, never to Clove)_

“I-” Clove starts, and feels his fingers dig tighter into the lean, muscled arm he is holding.

Is she actually going to say it? _(no, Cato’s fingers whisper, no, don’t say it)_

Old Clove would never say something like that.

Old Clove, who hates everyone and everything that breathes. _(except maybe the boy who lets her lean on him and yell abuses at him every five minutes)_

Old Clove, who _likes_ the way blood looks, red pearls on green, green grass. _(except maybe that’s because those are the colours of the sweater his grandmother gets for him- and forces him to wear- every winter)_

Old Clove, who never wonders about something as ridiculous as _love_. _(except maybe when she does)_

Old Cove isn’t that different from New Clove, she thinks.

“Clove?” the voice says again, and it is still unreadable, but soft. _(and_ God _but Clove knows what that means)_

Clove elbows him lightly in the ribs, and he shuts up. They stand like that for as long as she can bear, bodies inches from each other. _(Clove has never been patient, not like Cato, and that will be her undoing.)_

“Promise me that we will be the last two,” she says, finally, words tearing out of her mouth. “Promise me that you won’t let anyone else kill you.”

He laughs, short and bitter. _(which works, because she is short, and he is always bitter, but wait, what is she thinking and is she thinking this because his eyes are wide and grey and look as scared as she has ever seen them?)_ “Promise me that you won’t let anyone else kill _you_ ,” he echoes, and Clove thinks she feels him pull her a little closer, hold her a little tighter.

“Sabotage!” she says, in the hope that he won’t notice the inexplicable, _weak_ tears beading at the corner of her eyes. “You’re trying to cut off circulation to my lower arm so that they have to amputate it and I won’t be able to kick your sorry ass!”

“Fuck you, Clove,” he chokes out, and cups her face with his hands. And for a moment, he is soft and gentle and stupendously like the little boy she met ten years ago, _(when she was taller than him and they didn’t know how to shutter smiles and blink away hope and wash away sadness.)_ For a moment, he runs his fingers thorough her hair and lets her tongue caress the delicate pink underside of his lip. For a moment, there is a noisy silence filled with the sound of their breathing. _(like raindrops on leaves, she thinks, before telling herself to just shut the hell up)_

For a moment, nothing exists but them.

For a moment, Clove thinks that love is simple, love is easy.

For a moment, Clove lets herself be weak and stupid, and forgets that neither of them have made any promises.

“Happy birthday,” he says, and the moment is over.

“Let’s go for dinner,” she says, and she knows what love is.

He takes her hand and lets his thumb brush over it once, like a whisper, the breeze in trees, before letting go. _(she knows that he knows what love is too)_

Love is not simple ( _it is)_. Love is arrogant and hard and demanding ( _young and clever and untouchable)_ , strong and wild like blood ( _sweet and quiet like wine)_ , deadly and determined and desperate _(beautiful and breathtaking and brave)._

Love is Cato, _(love is Cato’s kisses)._

**Author's Note:**

> So... uh, first time writing for the HG fandom, I hope this was decent. (And by that I mean I hope I didn't butcher your babies!)  
> Unbeta'd, all mistakes are my own. Feel free to point them out.


End file.
